by Mary Carroll Moore

Books often start with a simple yearning to explore new territory: fascinating topics, characters who won’t leave you alone, a good story. Writing at this level is sheer fun. It’s a great way to find out what you believe and who you are, to listen to yourself on paper and make sense of what you hear.

Writing a book is one of the most far-reaching journeys a person can take. But because your book doesn’t always provide road signs, often you don’t know if you are getting anywhere at all. It’s easy to get lost along the way. You may have experienced the excitement of starting a book. You may have also experienced the frustration of stalling out midway through a manuscript because you didn’t know where to go next.

A book is much more than just producing pages. A book demands your belief, your stamina, and strong structure that a reader can follow.

It’s a lot easier with a map.

The summer I turned nineteen, I hitchhiked through Greece and lived to tell the tale. I was sleeping on the floor in a bookstore in Paris called Shakespeare & Company when I overheard some Australian students talking about a beautiful ruined temple overlooking the Aegean. It was August, too hot in Paris, and my college semester didn’t start for three weeks. I decided to see this wonder.

I bought a ticket on an overnight train and peppered the Aussies with questions. In Athens, trying to figure out how to follow the sun south, alone, with little money, no place to stay, I struck up a conversation with a young British couple. We decided to hitchhike to Cape Sounion. Together we would figure out the route.

Part of the fun was traveling rough. We got rides in trucks, slept along roadsides, ate baklava for breakfast. We washed our clothes in the Aegean and dried them on the beach. Asking directions and getting lost many times, we finally stood under the columns of the Temple of Poseidon, staring at the impossibly blue sea.

Back in Paris, I began my college semester without thinking much about the risks of hitchhiking through Greece during a time of intense anti-Americanism. It was only years later, traveling again—this time with maps—that I learned the easier, safer route. I began my first book without a map too. An expert in gourmet natural foods, I co-owned a cooking school that was reviewed in USA Today. One day, a publisher approached me: Would I write a book about my methods?

But books are harder to travel blindly, so an editor, working closely with me on every part of the book, helped me learn the craft and make the book’s map. During our collaboration, we created a plan for the book’s flow, we researched other books to find the best possible structure, and during revision we took out what didn’t serve the reader. This first book, Healthy Cooking, introduced the home cook to everyday fresh foods prepared elegantly. My lack of book-writing skills was balanced by good recipes and a good editor, and Healthy Cooking became a bestseller in the eighties and won an International Association of Cooking Professionals Award.

Without a map, without my editor’s guidance, giving up was a given. I felt discouraged many times, before my first book was done, but my editor pointed to our plan and we carried on. I went on to publish 13 more books in three genres—memoir, more nonfiction including self-help/spirituality, and eventually a novel. As I published more, I learned the value of creating a new map for each book project. The process became much more enjoyable—and it didn’t take away the wonder of exploring new territory. I just knew what to do when the road disappeared, when I lost enthusiasm, when the manuscript overwhelmed me. My maps found me when I got lost along the way.

The most valuable starting place for mapmaking is three simple questions. A good book satisfies in three basic ways: the writer’s need to write it, the reader’s reason to read it, and the unique ways in which the book can contribute to the world of literature (the publisher considers this last aspect very carefully).

Making your map starts with asking yourself the right questions to explore these needs. Although the questions are simple, the answers never are. Your answers will tell you where you are already on solid ground, where you will need to develop specific book-writing skills, where you might lack stamina to sustain your initial enthusiasm, and where you might get lost on the way.

Three Questions

1. Why am I writing this book?
2. Why do I think a reader will want to read this book?
3. What do I think about this book’s purpose in the world or the greater mission it could fulfill?

Most writers have thought about one of these questions a lot, but not all three. As they work out the answers to all the questions, they begin to make their maps. Many writers have a book inside them, but how many know why they really want to write it? How many ask the simple question, Why am I writing this book?

For ten years I’ve taught writers of all skill levels how to plan, write, and develop their books. I ask each one this question, and from their answers I compiled a list of the top reasons—practical, professional, and personal—why people write books.

Top Reasons Why People Write Books

• I need to document a life-changing event.
• I want to help others.
• My characters won’t leave me alone.
• My friends tell me I have a great story to tell.
• I want to leave my family a written legacy.
• I want to make some money, retire rich.
• It’s publish or perish in my job.
• I need a book to sell at my workshops and seminars.
• I want to promote my expertise to business clients.
• My crazy family story would make a great novel.
• I’m published, but I want to try a new genre.
• I want to share what I’ve learned in my life.
• I need a creative outlet.
• I want to compile my published pieces into a book.
• I want to publish my dissertation.
• I have a story I must tell.

What’s your personal reason for writing your book? Why is it important to you? What’s driving you to begin this journey, to do the work needed to draw a map for your book, to take it to publication? Any thought you can give this question will help you have an easier trip.

In my upcoming workshop at the Loft on Friday and Saturday, March 26–27, I’ll take writers through the three questions in depth, helping them create their maps for the journey of their particular manuscripts. We’ll look at how these maps point the way toward what needs to be in the book and what can wait for another story. We’ll use “islands” and storyboarding to revisit our book concepts, see how a reader will be moved by our material, and look at our book project from a publisher’s point of view by exploring question number 3. Registration is limited for this popular class. For more information, call the Loft at 612-379-8999 or visit www.loft.org and search for “How to Plan, Write, and Develop a Book.” Hope to see you there!

Mary Carroll Moore, MA, MFA, is the author of 13 published books in three genres. Her recent novel, Qualities of Light, was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award and was featured in the New York Times. She is on the faculty of The Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis and the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center near New York City. Mary is a former syndicated columnist for the Los Angeles Times, and more than 200 of her essays, short stories, articles, and poems have appeared in literary journals, magazines, and newspapers around the United States. She has won awards with the McKnight Awards for Creative Prose, Glimmer Train Press, the Loft Mentor Series, and other writing competitions. She writes a weekly blog for book writers at http://howtoplanwriteanddevelopabook.blogspot.com.